Rappelez-vous, tout avait commencé par l'envol de l'oiseau préhistorique qui, revenu à la vie dans des circontances mystérieuses, s'était échappé de son oeuf fossilisé, frôlant de ses ailes ses contemporains pétrifiés du muséum d'histoire naturelle.Adèle Blanc-Sec avait été l'un des personnages de cette histoire, séquestrant Edith Rabatjoie et projetant l'évasion de Lucien Ripol, cambrioleur condamné à la guillotine... Il s'avère qu'Adèle fut trahie par ses anciens homme de main, elle avait été dupée... et le magot lui avait échappé ! Tout le monde s'était payé sa tête, A son tour maintenant... Elle va donc voir Flageollet, un détective plutôt mauvais qui lui parle d'une statuette assyrienne représentant Pazuzu, un démon. Mais Adèle ne sait pas où elle met les pieds. Elle va trouver sur sa route une étrange secte adoratrice de Pazuzu et un paquet de personnages cupides... Va-t-elle trouver le magot et retrouver ceux qui l'avaient trahie?
Jacques Tardi is a French comics artist, born 30 August 1946 in Valence, Drôme. He is often credited solely as Tardi.
After graduating from the École nationale des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs in Paris, he started writing comics in 1969, at the age of 23, in the comics magazine Pilote, initially illustrating short stories written by Jean Giraud and Serge de Beketch, before creating the political fiction story Rumeur sur le Rouergue from a scenario by Pierre Christin in 1972.
A highly versatile artist, Tardi successfully adapted novels by controversial writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline or crime novelist Léo Malet. In Malet's case, Tardi adapted his detective hero Nestor Burma into a series of critically acclaimed graphic novels, though he also wrote and drew original stories of his own.
Tardi also created one of French comics' most famous heroines, Adèle Blanc-Sec. This series recreates the Paris of early 20th century where the moody heroine encounters supernatural events, state plots, occult societies and experiments in cryogenics.
Another graphic novel was Ici Même which was written by Jean-Claude Forest, best known as the creator of Barbarella. A satire, it describes the adventures of Arthur Même who lives on the walls of his family's former property.
Tardi has produced many antiwar graphic novels and comics, mainly focusing on the collective European trauma of the First World War, and the pitfalls of patriotism spawned several albums (Adieu Brindavoine, C'était la guerre des tranchées, Le trou d'obus, Putain de Guerre...). His grandfather's involvement in the day-to-day horrors of trench warfare, seems to have had a deep influence to his artistic expression. He also completed a four-volume series on the Paris Commune, Le cri du peuple.
Fantagraphics Books translate and publish in English a wide range of Tardi's books, done by editor and translator Kim Thompson.[3] The books released so far are West Coast Blues (Le Petit bleu de la côte ouest), You Are There (Ici Même), and It Was the War of the Trenches (C'était la guerre des tranchées); a single album collecting the first two Adele Blanc-Sec volumes has also been published.
A great second volume in this series – I actually enjoyed this one more than the first. Maybe because I’m now familiar with the characters and the tone.
It’s a great story that ties threads from the first volume into a new mystery involving orientalism, secret brotherhoods and murdered actors.
The comic adventures of a French journalist who is constantly wrapped up in plots of revenge and murder due to her irrepressible curiosity. Parts of the plot were a little hard to follow, since it's the second volume, but an upcoming edition from Fantagraphics promises to release them in order with a new translation.
Adele Blanc-Sec is far and away the Blanc-Sexiest!
Compared to the first volume, the story is more linear and comprehensible, and the characters more distinguishable and consistent (spoiler alert):
- Hunted for her previous crimes, Adele’s only remaining ally is Simon Flageolet. He wants her to retrieve an Assyrian statuette of the demon Pazuzu, which was part of the loot kept by Joseph. Adele and Simon follow a clue to the house of Jules-Emile Peissonnier, the stage designer of The Last Days of Babylon, where they are overheard by the traitor Albert. Meanwhile, there’s an outbreak of plague in Paris, and a series of disappearances on the Pont Neuf. Adele goes to the theatre to see The Last Days of Babylon, which features a large statue of Pazuzu. The lead actress, Clara Benhardt, dramatically stabs a heretic and is applauded by the audience, who don’t realise she has used a real knife to kill the actor.
- Adele traces the statuette to an antiques shop, but Joseph has got there first and bought it back. Crossing the Pont Neuf, her cab is fire-bombed and falls into the river. But she escapes and, disguised as a beggar, sees a passer-by use a secret entrance to descend into the foundations of the bridge. There, she finds a congregation worshipping Pazuzu, presided over by Albert and a bearded high priest. Albert displays the plague-ridden corpses of Joseph and the antique shop owner, who were sentenced to death for sacrilege. Adele tries to escape through the sewers, but is knocked out, awakening to find herself a captive of Albert.
- On a tip-off, Caponi goes to the flat of the playwright, Antoine Artaud, but finds him stabbed to death. Flageolet is shot after telling Caponi what he knows. Caponi follows monstrous footprints in the snow to the Eiffel Tower, where the cult is preparing to sacrifice Adele by injecting her with plague. Caponi is attacked by a live Pazuzu: he shoots but instead wounds Peissonnier, who is part of the cult. Caponi manages to knock out Pazuzu, who is Clara Benhardt in disguise. Caponi rescues Adele and, in the struggle, Albert is accidentally injected with plague and falls to his death from the tower. The high priest is unmasked as Police Commissioner Dugommier. Clara Benhardt flees pursued by Caponi who mistakenly shoots a dinosaur which had been revived by Menard, Esperandieu and Zborowsky. Benhardt remains at large.
This volume starts to retrieve Adele’s reputation by explaining that she’s a writer who only fell in with criminals when researching their milieu. It has plenty of the lavish Belle Epoque furnishings, décor and wardrobe - for example Peissonnier’s floral smoking jacket and Persian carpet - which are one of the series’ pleasures. It still suffers from the odd superfluous plot item, in particular the dinosaur (!) near the end. Finally, as may be evident, these books are probably not suitable for young children. In fact, in the library of my son’s secondary school, they are reserved for the oldest classes (from about 15 years).
I am told that 'les bandes dessinées' are a large part of French literary culture, a much larger part, generally-speaking, than in the Anglophone world. I grew up on Tintin and Asterix, so I can certainly believe this. I was told that the Adèle Blanc-Sec series is most assuredly for adults and is a good deal more sophisticated than Tintin etc., but as far as I can tell it isn't much different - just with a female protagonist (which is nice, but not worth much in and of itself) and with a lot more violence. Quite frankly, boring.
Toen ik een jaar of 9 was heb ik de Isabelle Avondrood-serie gelezen. Met name 'Isabelle en het Monster' zorgde voor heel wat nachtmerries. Een paar jaar geleden stuitte ik weer op de eerste 2 afleveringen, waaronder "De demon van de Eiffeltoren".
Apart, mysterieus, spannend, stoer; kortom: een geweldige comic!
I liked the 2nd book of Adel even more than the first. I found the French story a bit easier to follow which I think helped. I read a smaller version for students which had some of the words explained in French and discussions and things at the end which was very good.
Album 2 continues where the first left off. The story takes place over the course of a week in mid-December 1911 and revolves around a mysterious demon-worshipping sect with ramifications far up in society, at least into the police and the cultural life. Adèle gets involved in the case in order to strike back against everyone who cheated on her in the previous story, primarily Albert and Joseph.
She is helped by Simon Flageolet, who is a fool, and who, according to the fashion of the time, cultivates the oriental style. Tardi is good when he brings out the zeitgeist as he does here, it is one of several examples of how the Adèle stories are not just nonsense, there is a lot of research behind it. Otherwise, we move from mysterious passages under the Seine, via secret doors on famous bridges, to the Eiffel Tower, people die of a mysterious plague, and we get chase scenes with carriages and explosions. Towards the end, everyone involved, including quite a few people from the previous album, gathers in and around the Eiffel Tower. Inspector Caponi gets them all arrested, but unfortunately it only leads to demotion and not the promotion he had hoped for.
The case is not covered in the newspapers, but at the very end we learn that 1912 starts badly for Adèle. Something menacing is stalking her. The tension is maintained.
This album is perhaps even wilder than the previous one. Decadence is prominent, people in power are generally unreliable, cultural life is superficial, Adèle views it all with scepticism. We also learn that Adèle is a writer and worked on a book about Ripol. "I write books that take place in his environment", as she says it herself. So I suppose he wasn’t her boyfriend after all.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Escuchaba a Tardi el otro día en la radio. Decía que esta serie se la planteó como la típica novela de folletín de finales del 19.
Básicamente cada álbum tiene su propio caso autoconclusivo a nivel temático, pero te va presentando una serie de personajes que pueden servirle (o no) como semillitas de cara al futuro para una trama más grande.
Porque él es el primero en admitir que no sabía exactamente por dónde quería llevar la historia. Así que iba plantando cositas en este universo por aquí y por allá que podría a lo mejor usar a posteriori.
Y si para cuando estaba elaborando el siguiente álbum veía que no acababa de encajarle algún personaje o trama, pues se lo cargaba.
Es bastante anárquico y crudo visto así, pero también tiene su encanto. Como un auténtico patio de juegos.
(PT) Adele Blanc-Sec vai ver uma peça de teatro, "Os Últimos Dias da Babilónia", no meio de noticias sobre casos de peste em Paris. E ela sem saber, vai ao encontro de um assassinato... e de uma seita.
Ersatzreligiöser Obskurantismus Spätestens seit dem "Da Vinci Code" ist klar, dass unsere Welt, wie wir sie kennen, nur ein Tuch ist, das über die Wahrheit gebreitet ist. Unter dieser Decke treiben Geheimbünde ihr Spiel - Illuminaten, Freimaurer, GCHQ und der Vatikan steuern unsere Geschicke, ohne dass wir es merken.
Nein, natürlich glaube ich nicht an diese Verschwörungstheorien und die Macht geheimer Bünde. Meistens sind das Altherrenclubs, die sich zwischen Aperitiv und Digestiv bequem im Sessel nur darüber unterhalten, was ihrer Meinung nach der Lauf der Welt sein sollte. Wenn man die Aufnahmerituale mitberücksichtigt, von denen man immer wieder hört, dann wird klar, dass sich sehrspätpubertierende Megalomanen mit Neigung zum Sadismus hier versammeln; und selten kam wirklich etwas Bedeutendes aus solchen Vereinigungen, weder zum Guten noch zum Schlechten. Aber als Projektionsfläche für die Fiktion dienen sie natürlich wunderbar, so wie hier, in der ein Geheimbund eine wichtige Rolle spielt.
Ein schönes, auf den Vorgängerband und wahrscheinlich auch dessen Beurteilung durch die Kritik rückblickendes Detail ist die Unterhaltung zwischen Caponi und Flageolet, in der sie sich über das letzte Abenteuer mit dem Pterodactylus unterhalten: Das hätte man nie in einem Roman verarbeiten können, viel zu kompliziert sei die Geschichte gewesen, das hätte kein Leser verstanden.
Tatsächlich ist dieser Folgeband, der die Geschichte mit den bekannten Personen weiterführt, deutlich weniger schwierig, aber doch genauso wundersam: Geheimnisvolle Dämonen aus der babylonischen Urzeit, Geheimgesellschaften, versteckte Geheimgänge an der Pont-Neuf, ein Showdown auf dem Wahrzeichen der Stadt Paris - ein Genuss, hübsch verziert durch Tardis eigenwilligen Stil, angehaucht vom Jugendstil, passend zur Zeit, in der die Geschichte spielt. Auch dass Adèle nicht die strahlende Heldin ist, sondern ein bisschen ein schummriger Charakter, der von den Umständen hin und her geworfen wird, ist eine nette Abwechslung.
Allein schon vom grafischen Aspekt her eine spannende Lektüre, und dann auch noch witzig erzählt und mit viel Atmosphäre gespickt.
This is a cute, but not all that great comic about the adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, an author and solver of mysteries in early 20th century Paris. In the Adele Blanc-Sec series, this falls after the adventure that is featured in the recent film.
Les aventures d'Adèle Blanc-Sec sont vraiment particulières. J'aime bien mais c'est à chaque fois une surprise car je trouve qu'il y a un décalage entre le contexte, le dessin et l'histoire racontée.
Again, much like Tintin but much more violent. You need to have read The Arctic Marauder for the end of this to make any sense whatsoever, and even then it's shocking.